<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>is it really worth it? by sleepynap</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29055267">is it really worth it?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepynap/pseuds/sleepynap'>sleepynap</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Explosions, Gen, Immortality, Manberg Festival on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Memory Loss, Tales From The SMP, Time Travel, Time Travelling Karl Jacobs, War, but not yet really, just leading up to it, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:27:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,257</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29055267</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepynap/pseuds/sleepynap</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>time traveling is cool.</p><p>it's even more cool when you can save your friends from bad things.</p><p>and the memory loss that comes with it is cool too. wait... the what??</p><p>---</p><p>short oneshot about time traveler karl before the tales from the smp! :)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Karl Jacobs/Sapnap mentioned</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>is it really worth it?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>time traveler karl brainrot after the lost city of mizu lead to this.</p><p>rated teen for language :)  also pls note that english isn't my first language and this was written at like 4am.</p><p>lowercase intented!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>karl closed his eyes. his stomach spinned as he walked through the portal. he stumbled and fell to the floor, opening his eyes and looking around the slightly litten hidden library.</p><p>his mind still a little hazy and his insides still spinning from traveling in time, he stood up with the help of a table standing in the small room. an open diary and a compass were sitting peacefully in the middle of the wooden furniture, exactly where karl left them before he stepped through the portal.</p><p>his legs were still a bit shaky. he tried to swallow but his throat was dry. quickly looking around, he grabbed the stuff from the table, his armour and weapons and ran.</p><p>he could hear cheers from not too far away. sounds of his friends happily celebrating the festival, not knowing what’s about to happen. deciding to not go to the festival now seemed like a really great decision.</p><p>he took a sharp breath and cursed to himself under his breath. he might be too late. looking at the golden watch on his arm, he found out they weren’t working. stupid time traveling, he thought to himself as he sped up. he could hear tubbo’s voice speaking from a microphone now. fuck, fuck, fuck. quickly, he made a decision and changed directions. saving tubbo’s life wasn’t an option now.</p><p>sprinting across the smp he got to the button quite fast. having memorised the place in the future vision, it now seemed too calm. he licked his dry lips and entered the room with the now meaningless anthem written all over the walls. letting out a sigh he pulled out his axe, ready to destroy the button and stop his friend from blowing up the country and hurting others.</p><p>„karl.”</p><p>his head snapped and he quickly turned around. and of course, it was the green man standing there, looking down at him. he was holding his axe and was in full netherite armour with a shield in his left hand. he looked ready for a war. but giving it a deeper thought, lately he always looked like that. he was more cold and always had a weapon in his hand. his threating past wasn’t really helping his intimidating image.</p><p>but karl knew dream. he knew his secrets, his friends, his dreams and his fears. he probably knew too much. he knew one of dream’s deepest secrets, he found out unintentionally and probably not to detail but it was enough.</p><p>the first time he met dream in his time travels he was confused. he didn’t talk to him, but then he saw him in the past for the second and third time, he was in every timeline karl travelled to. his head was killing him. he barely talked to him, past dream not exactly knowing who he is yet couldn’t really help him or answer his questions. </p><p>this was the first time he would be able to talk to dream since he saw him there, dream this time knowing who he is.</p><p>karl tilted his head, twisting the axe in his hand. „what are you doing here?” </p><p>dream laughed lightly, completely ignoring his question. „go on.” he nodded his head to the button.</p><p>karl furrowed his eyebrows, confusedly looking at dream. he was the one who gave wilbur the tnt and asked him to blow it up, so why did he want to stop it? did he change his mind? no, that would be very unlike dream. but on the other hand, what was dream really like?</p><p>turning around, karl raised his axe, giving one last look to dream before destroying the button and wilbur’s chance to blow up l’manburg with it. he turned around to see dream still standing there with a mask covering his face. lately he kept that on around his friends more than he used to.</p><p>„you’re playing with time, jacobs.” dream said tightening the hold on his axe. karl’s eyes slid to his hand clenching around the weapon. dream noticing loosened the grip and put his axe back in his inventory. „you gotta be more careful.”</p><p>„i think i’m doing just alright.” karl answered, not letting his friend have complete control over the situation.</p><p>dream hummed, tilting his head. „of course. even the smallest things can change history, karl. stop being so carefree.” </p><p>„i’ve got it under control.” karl smiled at him and this time it was him tightening the grip on his axe. </p><p>„whatever, don’t abuse your power too much. you might get too lost in yourself.” dream said, raising his eyebrows slightly when he saw karl’s grip on his axe.</p><p>the voices outside were getting closer and closer. screams of anger. dream turned around, like he’d be able to see the people the voices belonged to from metres away.</p><p>„watch out for your head, jacobs. this is time you’re playing with.” he said and then disappeared when the voices got closer, leaving karl alone with angry wilbur running to the room.</p><p>karl quickly hid in the stone blocks on the walls and had to listen to wilbur cry over the button being gone.</p><p>he didn’t take take dream’s words to heart. his friend always had a bit of a superiority complex. he also didn’t get to speak to dream about his immortality or whatever caused him to be in every damn timeline karl travelled to, but it was alright.</p><p>he went to bed with a smile that day, exhausted, but glad he was quick enough to save a nation. now he had a few more days before a war would start. that meant he could look into the future and find out how to prevent any disasters. </p><p>•••</p><p>but then he stepped through the portal another time. he couldn’t save l’manburg this time. it hurt to know what will happen and not do anything about it, but he tried to prevent it from happening and all he did was manage to postpone it to a few days later. he decided to just let it happen and not do anything about it. every day was more and more painful, watching his friends prepare for war. he didn’t participate. it felt wrong, knowing the outcome. </p><p>maybe dream was right, he shouldn’t play with time. the portal itself wasn’t helping. everytime he stepped through it, he felt like his memories all mashed together. like a few of them left him and the portal absorbed them. it was ridiculous but he felt like he was slowly losing his mind.</p><p>time traveling sucked.</p><p>he was sitting at the table in his small library. the portal seemed small, useless, like it was laughing at him. turning the pen between his fingers he quickly wrote every detail he remembered from his last travel to the past. he couldn’t help himself, the wait for the war was too tense. he did that a lot now, writing his memories in his diary, in case something happened.</p><p>he could hear screams and explosions from outside. he covered his ears and bit his lip, squeezing his eyes shut together. the temptation to go look at what was happening was getting bigger and bigger, even though he saw it before. </p><p>the explosions stopped after a while, his ears slightly ringing, even though he covered his ears. his curiosity got the best of him so he stood up and closing the diary, walked out of the library.</p><p>he saw it before but it still shocked him. big hole in the middle of where a city stood few minutes before, water flowing out in some places. his friends shocked, stood on one place, hugging, crying. he pulled his sleeves over his palms and squeezed them between his fingers. tommy and tubbo were stood next to eachother, looking up at the place, where a button that caused all of this was just a few seconds ago. karl looked up and saw wilbur and phil standing opposite each other, phil holding a sword. wilbur’s sword. everything was playing out exactly as it did when he was there the first time. wilbur’s pleas to die could be heard from the distance. this was traumatising. he looked away when phil raised the sword to kill his son. he saw this already, he wasn’t ready to see it again.</p><p>that’s when it hit him. he did see it before. all of it. and he didn’t even try to prevent it. he knew all of this would happen. why the fuck did he listen to dream and let it happen? was that the right choice? </p><p>looking around the ruins that once used to be a country, a green man in purple armour caught his eye. dream moved his head, signaling for karl to come to him and then to the direction of george’s house. karl looked up once more. phil kneeling, his damaged wings hugging his now unconscious son. he was angry at himself. all of this could be prevented if he did something. or could it...?</p><p>turning away he followed dream to where he was walking. he had to run a few times, still catching up to dream only once they were in front of george’s new house that he finished building while all of this was going on. dream opened the door and walked in, karl following him shortly.</p><p>george was sat on the floor petting a cat on his lap, talking to sapnap, who was leaning against the wall, and quackity, who was sitting next to him.</p><p>„karl! where were you? we couldn’t find you anywhere, i was worried.” sapnap rushed to hug him when he stepped through the door. karl burried his head in sapnap’s shoulder and inhaled his smell. he felt content again. it was the effect his fiancée had on him. he made him feel safe, even though he felt guilty for not telling him about what he was doing. pulling away he gave him a quick kiss and smiled at him.</p><p>„i was just in the library, didn’t think a war would start while i’m reading.” he faked a laugh and leaned down to pet george’s cat to cover the discomfort on his face. he hated lying to his partner and friends but he didn’t really think there was another choice.</p><p>dream walked over to a table on the completely other side of the room and sat down. he pulled his mask down and put it on the oak wooden furniture, looking at karl, secretly asking him to join him. so he went to sit down opposite of dream and waited for whatever he wanted to tell him.</p><p>but dream seemed too occupied with looking at his friend, who was currently laughing at some dumb joke quackity told him. karl snickered at the fond look in dream’s eyes. dream quickly turned to look at him, his intimidating act falling down in front of his close friends. a slight blush appeared on his cheeks and karl just rolled his eyes. his friends were dumb. dream let out a soft laugh and they fell into a silence.</p><p>„didn’t try to play with time this time?” dream asked after a few seconds of being silent.</p><p>karl turned his head to look at their friends, making sure none of them could hear them. after checking, he shook his head.</p><p>„i don’t think it was a good idea though.” he answered furrowing his eyebrows. another short silence.</p><p>„how often do you travel?” dream broke it looking straight into karl’s eyes.</p><p>„not much.” karl lied and turned his head away, trying to escape dream’s sharp look.</p><p>„you’re not a good liar, you know.” dream laughed lightly. „you should be more careful. time traveling has side effects, they’re different for everyone. i don’t think you understand how important being careful in your situation is.”</p><p>„i can take the side effects if it means i can prevent something horrible from happening.” karl said, this time a lot less confident, his voice slightly wavering. he wasn’t sure if that was true. he wasn’t sure about anything lately.</p><p>„you can’t prevent every bad thing from happening. they’re an important part of history and they will all just happen later. and they will be worse, bigger build up leading to more anger.” </p><p>„you seem to know a lot about time.” karl stated, trying to get dream to directly say what he was doing in the past.</p><p>„well, obviously. i’ve been around for a long time.” dream said looking at their friends again, to check they weren’t listening.</p><p>„oh really?” karl asked making eye contact with dream. his green eyes seemed more cold every day. </p><p>„don’t act dumb, jacobs. you saw me.” dream raised his eyebrows, keeping the eye contact.</p><p>„what are you two talking about there? come share with us!” quackity raised his voice, making both of the boys look to his direction. all three of their friends were looking at them.</p><p>„just things.” karl shrugged, trying to act as casual as he could. the anxious pit in his stomach now overflowed and spread through his whole body. he didn’t like how dream was acting at all. </p><p>„i think i should go.” dream announced and stood up, taking his mask from the table.</p><p>before putting his mask on and walking through the door to the land smelling after smoke and explosions, he told karl something, that he would remind himself of later and ask himself why he didn’t listen more. the sentence that he would repeat in his head constantly, trying to not forget.</p><p>„don’t forget who you are, jacobs.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>im aware that its canon that karlnapity (is that what theyre called?) are in a polyamorous releationship but quackity isnt comfortable with shipping and i dont want to overstep his boundaries! so have some karlnap only instead.</p><p>forgive me for the shitty title, i couldnt come up with anything. i might continue this in a series because im in love with time traveler karl but we'll see! :) i hope u enjoyed :D</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>